I Can Forget It For You ... Retail

A dispatch from bewilderness

The world is divided into things I can’t say and more things I can’t say. This is called aphasia.  Plus things I used to know, things I never knew, and things I won’t know a moment from now. That is called amnesia.   

Amnesia can be described as a massive memory makeover. Which leaves little to the imagination, or in the imagination, or from it. Though once in a while, there’s a small wonder. Or a small wander. Minus linguistic precision.

Add a flashback or two from who-knows when plus strange things I somehow remember no matter what.  Like a quasi-boyfriend who kept leaving to feed his dead cat.  The cat, who was named Martin, despite his demise, frequently required cream.

And another quasi-boyfriend/Federal Agent who shot off his little finger while teaching firearms safety for the FBI.  The finger was reattached.  

I started getting old and then I kept doing it.  I also got hit by a truck, acquired brain damage, and started tackling topics like love, grief, faith and I-forget-what mixed with humor, faith and brain damage.  As in amnesic memoirettes which morphed into pieces like this.

All events take place in in who-know-wheres-ville at times like who-knows when. They may or may not follow the parameters of parameters and the convention of conventions and I post them either every other decade, or, rather, two times each week. (The second answer is true.)

I learned a few things. For example, everything we dreamed of or prayed for can be lost in an instant. Like memories of a much-loved home metaphorically blown up with my child and me in it.

At a celebration of life that took place here last week, out of town visitors who were friends of the deceased asked if I am living here.  I almost replied, Yes, I am. And I’m dying here, too.  That’s the only way we leave. 

I live in a CCRC — which means a Continuing Care Retirement Community. That means we won’t be kicked out ever but will each leave feet first. Algorithmically acquired by marketing, they know how many of us will decline more or less when and how many of us will depart more or less when.

In an outstanding sign of health in the now-needed-more-than-ever-Old Age Industry, there are more people waiting to live here when a space opens than there are people living here now.